Email Marketing is Dying – If You Play by the Old Rules

by Marketing | Jun 19, 2017 | Content, Digital Marketing, Strategy

I am reading tons of posts about how email is NOT dying, how 2017 is the year of email marketing, and how email is still a HUGE tool for business.  Really?  I have so many damn emails in my inbox from companies I’ve never subscribed to I blanket delete them all the time.  If I only received email from the places I actually subscribed, reading them would be very manageable and meaningful.   Today, we all skim emails by subject line, then by sender – just like Google search results.  We’re looking for the right topic, then the credibility somewhere in between the lines.  But those alone won’t guarantee a meaningful click-thru.  There’s still something missing…

As you know, email marketing it’s a numbers game, which is great, I love analytics, but now they are diluted and we’re relying on them too much.  Even with all that, I still don’t buy it.  I don’t buy that email marketing is more effective than it was 5 or 10 years ago (or even 1).  What we’re missing in all this is a new variable, not just a percent or number that shows a perceived value from a campaign.  We need something deeper and I’m calling it the Interest Quotient.

The Interest Quotient is a non-linear measurement that is individually unique for each person.  How do you measure that?  I don’t know, my formula below is a crude generalization.  The Quotient though is indicative of the one thing that sparks interest at a given time.  There is a common thread despite the uniqueness – it is that there is a deeper Interest in a topic that highlights that message above all the junk.  Here’s the most rudimentary formula I could come up with – though I haven’t calculated in any quantum entanglement theories just yet (I’m kidding).

Interest Quotient = (Subject + Sender) * Credibility / Depth of Interest

Start simple every day – Follow these rules on your email campaigns:

1. Refine your list, sending to smaller lists is fine.
2. Group your lists – don’t send one to all.  Keep the segmented by interest, response, lead value, or customer.
3. Have depth to your message.  It starts with Subject, then Sender and a high dose of credibility
4. Make friends with your lists – Like a good manager, know what moves and motivates each list, like a person.

Want to know more?  Why not give me a call and we’ll discuss your ideas.

There’s infinite number of great ideas in each person.
Tom Smidt (tom.smidt@icita.net)
720.232.0917